Bill Granger's Baked Tomato and Mozzarella Pasta

I forgot to take something out of the freezer this morning for dinner tonight, so that meant we were going to have pasta. I wanted to do something different and have a (non-cheesy) pasta bake, so I made one from Bill Granger's Everyday. This is really easy and tastes fantastic. It's not that bad for you either, at approx 300 cal for a generous serve (pictured above).

Bill says to cook this for 30 minutes in a 180 degree oven, but I found that this was a little too high. I took mine out after 20 minutes and the top of the bake had dried out substantially. This may be because of my oven, but I recommend that you start checking a little earlier.

Baked Tomato and Mozzarella Pasta
Adapted from Bill Granger's Everyday.

1 tbs olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
400g tin chopped tomatoes
salt and pepper
400g cooked penne
80g fresh mozzarella cheese, torn into pieces.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Heat the olive oil in a pan over medium-low heat and cook the onion, stirring for 5 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic, celery and chilli flakes and cook for a further 5 minutes.

Add the tomatoes and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and remove from the heat.

Stir the tomato sauce through the cooked pasta and spoon into a casserole dish. Dot with mozzarella and bake for 30 minutes until the cheese is melted and bubbling.